Erich S. Gruen

On his book Rethinking the Other in Antiquity

Cover Interview of September 20, 2011

In a nutshell

How do nations, peoples, and ethnic groups fashion their own collective identities? For antiquity as well as for the modern era, one general answer has prevailed: societies shape their self-consciousness by framing a contrast with the “Other.”

The creation of distorted mirrors highlights the distinguishing features of one culture by playing them off against the stereotypes or negative images ascribed to ostensibly dissimilar societies. The differentiation has promoted conventional antinomies like Greek/barbarian, Jew/gentile, civilized/savage, advanced/backward, and righteous/degenerate. The common scholarly view holds that disparagement of alien cultures serves to develop the inner portrait, an essential ingredient in establishing self-esteem and claiming superiority.

Rethinking the Other challenges standard orthodoxy. It shows another side to this story and turns it on its head.

I attempt to show that when ancient peoples rediscovered their roots and recounted their history, they often did so by finding or claiming links with other societies, by pointing to cross-currents and overlaps that placed less emphasis on differences than on shared heritage within a broader Mediterranean setting.

The book moves beyond hostile stereotypes, distortions, and caricatures. It argues that linkages among peoples, whether real or fictive, played a larger role in mutual perceptions than antithesis, disparity, or rejection.

The interconnections appear in foundation myths that drew on diverse cultural traditions, stories of migratory movements, fictive genealogies, and invented kinship relations—a form of “togetherness’ rather than “otherness.” Readers of the book will find a web of complex associations among cultures and societies that undermine simplistic dichotomies and disclose a drive by the ancients to stress bonds rather than barriers.

The book is divided into two large sections: “Impressions of the Other” and “Connections with the Other.”

The first part, composed of eight chapters, examines Greek and Roman representations of Persians, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Gauls, Germans, and black Africans. It argues that the descriptions and characterizations, far from exhibiting simplistic stereotypes, display subtle characterizations that resist reductive placement into negative—or, for that matter, positive—categories.

The four chapters that make up the second part explore fictive genealogies, foundation legends, and stories of multiple migrations that underscore connections between cultures rather than disassociation and estrangement. They disclose the manner in which Mediterranean peoples encountered, even embraced, the traditions of others and introduced them into their own self-consciousness.

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011